Colin Powell, who hails from the same Bronx neighborhood as Sonia Sotomayor, said on Sunday that the Supreme Court nominee was of a "liberal bent of mind," but not so much that it would be "disqualifying" to her confirmation prospects.

In his appearance on CNN's "State of the Union," the former Secretary of State saved his sharpest jabs for the Republicans who have painted Sotomayor as a racist.

"She ought to be asked about everything from both the left and the right," said Powell, who endorsed Barack Obama towards the end of the presidential campaign. "What we can't continue to have is to have somebody like a Judge Sotomayor, who is announced, and based on one simple, tricky, but nonetheless case that the Supreme Court has now decided, have her called a racist, a reverse racist, and she ought to withdraw her nomination because we're mad at her."

Powell expressed relief that the GOP senators who sit on the Judiciary Committee, "after a few days of this kind of nonsense," decided to drop the Sotomayor-as-racist frame. But he would go on to argue that the Republican Party still had a major problem when it came to reaching out to minority voters. In the process, Powell took what seemed clear to be a jab at radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh for some of his more inflammatory rhetoric.

"If you look at the results of the election last fall, and make a judgment on the basis of how the party did with respect to the Hispanic vote and the African-American vote, realizing that President Obama, candidate Obama had a significant advantage with those constituencies, we haven't done well enough," he said. "And when you have non-elected officials, such as we have in our party, who immediately shout racism, or somebody who is quite prominent in the media says that the only basis upon which I could possibly have supported Obama was because he was black and I was black, even though I laid out my judgment on the candidates, then we still have a problem."

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Sunday that the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy he helped craft should be revisited, but he would not go so far as to call for a full repeal of the compromise.

"The policy and the law that came about in 1993 I think was correct for the time," Powell said in an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union." "Sixteen years have now gone by, and I think a lot has changed with respect to attitudes within our country. And therefore, I think this is a policy and a law that should be reviewed."

"I was withholding judgment because the commanders of the armed forces of the United States and the Joint Chiefs of Staff need to study it and make recommendations to the president, and have hearings before the Congress before a decision is made," he added. "It is not just a matter of old generals who, you know, are just too high-bound. There are lots of complicated issues with respect to this, and I think all of those issues should be illuminated. And I hope that the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commanders working with the secretary of defense will give this the greatest consideration and make their recommendation to the president and to the Congress."

Powell, as much as any congressional figure, played the foil in President Bill Clinton's efforts to follow through on a campaign promise that all citizens, regardless of sexual orientation, should be able to serve openly in the military. In recent months, he and other key players from the first battle (notably, former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn) have argued that political realities have evolved to the extent that the armed forces should take a closer look at the policy's purpose and effectiveness. In December 2008, Powell told CNN that it was time to "definitely re-evaluate" "Don't Ask Don't Tell."

By not calling for full repeal, the former Secretary of State and prominent Obama endorser doesn't really do the Obama administration many favors. During the campaign, the president called for overturning "Don't Ask Don't Tell." But he has been slow to act since taking office, even as 250 military servicemen have been dismissed for disclosing their sexuality. Having a prominent figure like Powell provide the cover for a sweeping policy reversal would be a gift to Obama and a boon to gay-rights groups, which have grown increasingly frustrated with the president for dragging his feet on this issue.

Should violence in Iraq spike with the removal of American troops, military commanders and administration officials have cautioned a policy of wait and see. The drawdown of military personnel from Iraq country has gone on schedule. The White House has insisted that there are no plans to revise or revisit that process.

On Sunday, Vice President Joseph Biden closed that door even further. Speaking to ABC's "This Week" during a trip to Iraq, Biden insisted on multiple occasions that the United States would not put additional soldiers' lives on the line for Iraq, even if violence erupts in that country once again.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What if the Iraqi people -- they've been dealing with these political disputes for an awful long time -- what if they can't solve them, the violence flares up again?

BIDEN: Well, that's going to be a tragic outcome for the Iraqi people. We made a commitment.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But are we going to put our lives on the line again?

BIDEN: No. We made a commitment to withdraw our troops from the cities by the 30th, to withdraw our combat brigades from Iraq by next summer -- the end of next summer, and withdraw all troops according to the SOFA, that agreement we negotiated with them, by the end of 2011. That is our intention.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But no matter what, 2011, American troops all gone?

BIDEN: That is the intention. We believe the Iraqis will be fully capable of maintaining their own security. And we believe that with the time frame, with their upcoming election -- you know they're having an election in January, I know you know that, they'll form a new government early -- in late winter as a consequence of that election. And it is our expectation that that election will come off peacefully.

This is the furthest the Obama White House has gone to fully disengaging from Iraq's internal problems -- though Biden did qualify his remarks with the word "intention." At the same time, U.S. military forces will be in the country through 2010 in order to monitor hot spots of violence and the possible emergence of terrorism. One would think that such a rigid approach to the Iraq drawdown would leave the administration susceptible to domestic political attacks. But, as Biden noted, the White House is merely carrying out their predecessors' plan.

"You know, it's kind of ironic," Biden said of criticisms from former V.P. Dick Cheney, who said he feared the U.S. would "waste" the sacrifices of its armed forces in Iraq. "It's their timetable we are implementing. Cheney and Bush agreed with the Iraqis before we were elected that we'd have combat troops out of the cities by June 30th... I mean, for this he can't have it both ways. He negotiated that timetable. We have met the commitment, the timetable, the last administration negotiated with Iraqis. And we're totally confident that is the right thing to do. So I find it kind of ironic that he's criticizing his own agreement that he negotiated."

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Karl Rove who successfully guided President Bush to the White House twice, was remarkably cold on Sarah Palin's decision to resign as governor of Alaska during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. The former Bush strategist and current Republican commentator argued that it was "not clear" what Palin's strategy was in resigning just two-and-a-half years into office, adding that the move was risky,m left her vulnerable to her critics, and would damage her chances of becoming president.

"I think it hurts," Rove told host Chris Wallace. "When you're a sitting governor, you have the tactical advantage if you're thinking about running for president of turning down a lot of things with an excuse that people will accept. 'I've got a job to do as governor.' She's now removed that. Now the expectations are going to be she's going to be fully available, she's going to be able to come to the lower 48, and she's going to be able to do whatever people ask her to do. And that's going to be a problem. It raises the expectations. It's also unclear what her strategy is. Again, she said she wanted to lead effective change outside of government. Well, now people will be saying what is it you mean by that and how are you demonstrating effective leadership for change around America? I'm like Governor [Mike] Huckabee. I'm a fan of Sarah Palin's, but the effective strategies in politics are ones that are so clear and obvious that people can grasp it."

The remarks were clearly premised on the notion that Palin would be running for the Republican nomination for president in 2012. Defenders of the Alaska Republican have argued that her resignation would clear her schedule to establish the firm political roots needed to mount a White House bid. Certainly it saves her from being stuck in Alaska at a time when she wants to build a national structure in the lower 48 states.

"This does give her a chance to travel the country, campaign for Republicans in 2010 ... and study up on issues," said Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard, later on the program. "I think she could have a very strong year and a half if she is disciplined... but it is high risk. She is clearly all in here and there is no safety net."

Rove argued that having three-and-a-half years outside of government to run for the White House would create too many tensions and expectations for Palin to satisfy.

"She's putting herself in a place where unless she comes up with something new and novel that demonstrates leadership for effective change outside of government, as she said in her speech, then she's going to be conventional," Rove said. "She cannot simply count on going around and collecting chits by campaigning for Republican candidates in 2010. ... She also, I repeat, has lost control of her time. She had the excuse of saying, 'I'm the governor I've got things to do.' Now people will be clamoring for her and the expectations will be out of sight."

One of the Democratic senators who was on the fence when it came to backing a public option for health insurance coverage is coming out in support of the measure.

On Thursday, Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) offered her support for the health care overhaul proposal put forth by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, of which she is a member. In the process, she issued a statement that removed any doubt about where she stands on a publicly run insurance option.

"My colleagues and I on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee have been working on a plan to reform the health care system in this country," Hagan's statement read. "We have crafted a plan that will stabilize health care costs and includes a Community Health Insurance Option, which I support. It is a backstop option for people without access to affordable coverage. Health care providers will not be required to participate, payment rates will be set in a competitive fashion, and the community health insurance option will compete on a level playing field with private health insurance plans in the gateway."

The public plan portion of the proposal, known as the Community Health Insurance Option, would be overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, but follow the rules set forth by the private market. At the same time, it would lower the costs of health care by pooling the purchasing powers of its participants and it would drastically lower the administrative costs customary to private providers. In short, one source on the committee said, it is the robust proposal that progressive wanted. And now Hagan, as her office confirmed to the Huffington Post, supports it.

For days, even weeks, the North Carolina Democrat had been pinpointed as a possible roadblock towards getting a strong public option out of the HELP committee. Progressive groups were running advertisements in her state to compel her to support the provision. Local pressure on the Senator was intense as well as it was widely believed that she was trying to water down the public option during the committee's drafting process.

In the end, Democrats say, Hagan was much more solid on the idea than media reports were letting on.

"The Left is wrong about Sen. Hagan on this," said a Senior Democratic staffer. "For others to attack her as standing in the way of progress on public choice just isn't right. She worked right up to the wire with other Democrats on the Committee. In the end, it will be plan they created together that will pass the Senate, guarantee access to affordable coverage for those who don't have it and preserve the options of those who do."

The White House acknowledged on Thursday that some members of the administration may have been invited to high-priced "salons" sponsored by the Washington Post and featuring corporate executives and lobbyists. But in his daily briefing with the press, spokesman Robert Gibbs said that no one, to his knowledge, had accepted the invitation and that the administration's ethics policy most likely would have prevented them from doing so.

"I think some people in the administration writ large may have been invited," Gibbs acknowledged towards the end of Thursday's briefing. "I do not believe, based on what I have been able to check, that anyone has accepted the invitation. Obviously the [White House] Counsel would have to review an invitation like this, and I think it would likely exceed what the counsel would -- the Salon that the Washington Post is offering would likely exceed what [administration] would feel in this case would be appropriate."

The admission that administration officials were likely contacted to attend the proposed Washington Post gatherings is another interesting tidbit in a story that has consumed much of the journalism and political wor.d on Thursday. Early in the morning, Politico reported that the Post was arranging a series of gatherings that would bring together newspaper officials, lobbyists, industry executives and White House officials for a price ranging from $25,000 to $250,000.

Several reporters at the paper told the Huffington Post that they were outraged by the news, having not been told in advance that management or the business side of the operation were considering the salon idea. Even if they did not partake in the events, these journalists felt that having representatives of industries and companies the paper was tasked with covering pay for access to its staff would irrevocably compromise their credibility. For the Obama White House, the association with lobbyists at these salon events would also create a host of ethical dilemmas.

The issue was made moot (at least for the time being) Thursday afternoon, when Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth canceled the planned events.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination for the Supreme Court has hit a small snag as high-ranking Republicans in the Senate are demanding that more information be provided about her past work and associations.

The complaints are common fare for presidential nominations -- a political tactic designed to draw out the nomination process in hopes that more dirt can be found. In some instances, there is a compelling public interest in drawing out that additional information.

That said, it's worth looking back a few years to recall just how disinterested the Bush White House and GOP Senators were in complete disclosure when it came to a Supreme Court nominee of their own.

In late 2005 and early 2006, Democrats in the Senate were demanding that Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito provide additional material pertaining to his service at the Office of the Solicitor General. Then ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote two separate letters to the Department of Justice requesting those files. His efforts were rebuffed.

"Judge Alito and the Department have already provided to the Committee a voluminous set of documents relating to Judge Alito's decades of public service," read the response from then Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella. "Judge Alito has sat on the federal appellate bench for more than 15 years, and his decisions in that capacity represent the best evidence of his judicial philosophy and of the manner in which he approaches judicial decision-making."

As the remarks suggest, it was the position of the Bush White House and its Justice Department that the Senate had sufficient material by which to assess Alito's resume. Moschella would go on to note that the Judiciary Committee had been "provided with a list of the more than 1,000 published decisions issued by panels on which Judge Alito sat, including the more than 340 opinions Judge Alito wrote." There were, in addition, concerns expressed that revealing more information from Alito's tenure at the Office of Solicitor General would compromise that Department's ability "to litigate cases effectively on behalf of the United States."

That said, calls for more material from Alito's background, whether they pertained to his work at OSG or on other issues were more often than not dismissed as pure politics by the administration's defenders. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex) said that demands for an explanation as to why Alito had not released information about the work he did in the 1980s to undercut Roe v. Wade were "manufactured hysteria." Nearly a month later, almost 300 additional documents from Alito's time at Justice Department -- which hadn't been previously made public -- were finally released.

With Sotomayor, the current complaint by GOP lawmakers is that she has revealed too little information with regard to her affiliation with the Puerto Rico Legal Defense Fund. The civil rights organization turned over more documents on Tuesday but Republicans on Judiciary and in leadership contend that it is just the tip of the iceberg.

"I think the key is just to finish the job," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Fox News Sunday. "For example, just a day or so ago, we discovered that there are 300 boxes of additional material that has just been discovered from her time working with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense [and Education] Fund ... The committee needs to have access to that material and time to work through it so we don't -- so we know all the facts before we vote on a person who's up for a lifetime job."

On Thursday, the White House hit back, with the president's chief counsel, Greg Craig, telling the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., that the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund records had no relevance to Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination.

"Perhaps there is confusion about Judge Sotomayor's role with PRLDEF, and that confusion may account for your unusual interest," Craig wrote in a letter to Sessions. "Let me be clear: On Judge Sotomayor's behalf, we submitted all documents the committee requested of her, and we did so in record time."

The Obama White House and Democratic Party are making a major new push to rally support for a health care overhaul, going up on air with a television advertisement declaring that "It's Time" for reform.

The spot builds off of the growing effort by the administration to frame the health care debate with personal stories of struggle. In the ad, a woman describes the medical challenges faced by her four-year-old son. A man says he was losing his health insurance along with his job, and another man reveals that his "father-in-law walks with a limp because he didn't have health care."

The Democratic National Committee is officially putting out the ad, but the coordination with the White House is obvious. The administration and its campaign arm -- Organizing for America -- have made a major push in recent weeks to shift the focus of the debate over health care onto the people who personify the need for reform. This included launching a site, "Health Care Stories for America," a site that allows people to look up individual stories of suffering from within their community. The soon-to-be-released ad, obtained by the Huffington Post, directs viewers to Organizing for America's main health care website.

Officials with the DNC say the spot will go up on air on Tuesday. They would not disclose how widely it will air, including how much money was behind the campaign and what markets would be targeted. The ad will be distributed via email to Organizing for America's 13 million members.

That email, signed by Barack Obama's former Campaign Manager David Plouffe, asks viewers to make $25 contributions to help buy air time.

"I want you to be the first to see this powerful ad. It features real people telling their true stories of lost coverage, watching loved ones go without care, and making the case for why we need reform," reads the email. "Once you watch this, you'll see what we mean about how powerful these personal stories can be -- and why we need to get them on the air right away."

The loss of 467,000 jobs in June, driving the national unemployment rate to 9.5 percent, is unwelcome news for the Obama administration, which has spent half a year trying to turn the tide of the economic downfall. Already the president has conceded that 10 percent unemployment is likely in America's future. But the job front remains a particular vulnerability for this White House -- the one major chink in the Obama armor, far more politically delicate than the president's handling of foreign affairs or health care.

And so, it shouldn't come as a surprise that within minutes of their release, Obama's political opponents turned the porous June job numbers against him. Obviously anticipating the bad news, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) released a web video featuring a job-sniffing bloodhound named Ellie Mae asking: "Where are the jobs."

The clip, a Boehner aide says, is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Narrated by Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga), it is based off a 1984 TV commercial by the Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

"This is a light-hearted web video, but the underlying point is no laughing matter," Boehner said in a statement. "At a time when Americans are looking to Washington for leadership, the trillion-dollar 'stimulus' isn't working. Americans were promised the stimulus would keep the unemployment rate from going above 8 percent. It's now skyrocketing above 9 percent. Where are the jobs?"

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Obama's allies will point out that the foundation of this current wave of job loss is rooted in the policies of the Bush administration. Economic models hold that the stimulus spending by the administration won't take affect fully until months from now. But, six months into office, it is also a widely accepted that the White House now "owns" much of this economy. Even Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has insisted that the success of the administration's policies should be measured in the number of jobs created.

"A good starting point is looking at broad measures of economic performance, like jobs," Geithner said in a response to questions posed by Huffington Post readers.

The Treasury Secretary went on to note that "job losses in the month of May were at their lowest level since September 2008." That talking point, however, now seems inoperative as pace of job losses in June was nearly 50 percent greater than the month before.

With reporting by Laura Dean

Sen. Joseph Lieberman affirmed on Tuesday what progressive health care reform advocates have long feared: At this juncture, he is likely to oppose a public option for health insurance coverage.

The Connecticut independent made his latest criticisms of a public option in an interview with the New Haven Independent. Weeks earlier, he told Bloomberg News that he didn't favor such an approach that might level the insurance industry market.

For Democrats, it was a shot to the gut -- the latest so-called centrist lawmaker from within their own party ranks speaking out against one of their most cherished aspects of health care reform. For all the angst Lieberman has caused within Democratic circles the past few years, he was supposed to be an ally on domestic issues.

But was it all that unexpected? Those close to the senator argue that he has always been skeptical of large government involvement in the health care industry and that he has always advocated for a more incremental approach to health care reform.

"He has been very consistent in trying to seek innovative approaches to try and get to universal health care coverage," said Dan Gerstein, a former aide. "When he was part of the '00 ticket, he supported Al Gore's step-by-step approach to getting health care reform, which at the time many progressives were very supportive of. This is not a debate about goals for him. This is a debate about means, both in terms of what makes sense on a policy basis and what is obtainable."

This certainly was the role Lieberman played during the last major reform effort. During the heart of the Clinton-era debate over the how to restructure the health care system, the then-Democrat was a constant thorn in the administration's side. As early as December 1993, he was calling the Clinton plan "too governmental, too regulatory and too costly." A supporter of a moderate bill championed by then Sen. John Breaux, Lieberman would add the descriptions "too big" and "too bureaucratic" to Clinton's approach several months later.

By the summer of 2004, Lieberman was attacking the notion that employers should be required to provide health care for their workers, arguing that there was "a universal consensus" against the idea. He pledged to try and strip the provision from Majority Leader George Mitchell's health care proposal. He also said he was willing to take a look at the plan put forth by the then Minority Leader, Sen. Bob Dole, which was structured largely after the approach then-candidate George H.W. Bush had promoted during the '92 campaign.

A month later, Lieberman stepped up his push for Breaux's proposal, which called for providing subsidies to lower-income families, demanded that insurance companies cover preexisting conditions and limited the tax benefits employers enjoyed for covering their workers (components that defined John McCain's 2008 approach).

"If this doesn't break the logjam," Lieberman said at the time, "nothing will."

Later that summer, the senator joined the moderate push to make sharp cuts in the prescription drug benefit included in the Clinton and Mitchell plans. In its place, Lieberman promoted means-testing -- a measure to determine which individuals could qualify for those benefits -- and setting a cap on spending for long-term care.

A critic of that idea, John Rother, the chief lobbyist for the American Association of Retired Persons, derided Lieberman for putting the possibility of achieving health care reform "in jeopardy" in 1994.

"This is more of a Band-Aid approach than real health reform," Rother said at the time.

Asked to assess Sen. Lieberman's approach to health care 15 years later, Rother said that not much had changed. "Based on his record, this is no surprise," he told the Huffinton Post. "His views haven't really changed that much... I think anyone who followed his career sees he is an Independent in many ways. I don't think you could assume support just because he is aligned with the Democratic caucus."

Nevertheless, there was an element of the Democratic party that did hope that time and circumstance might have tempered Lieberman's position on the issue. Certainly, when Democrats accepted the senator back into their ranks after he campaigned publicly against President Barack Obama, the condition seemed to be that he would support Obama on key legislative issues.

Lieberman's office did not respond to a request for comment.

Lieberman, who over the course of his career has taken more than $1 million from health professionals and insurance companies, as well as more than $600,000 from pharmaceutical and health product companies and $250,000 from health services and HMOs, could still come on board. He started off his interview with the New Haven Independent by saying he was "skeptical" of the public option -- not fully opposed -- because he feared "the public is going to end up paying for it."

The progressive community is doing what it can to change his mind.

"We expect Sen. Lieberman to support President Obama's health care plan, including offering the choice of a new public health insurance option to lower costs and keep the insurance companies honest," Jacki Schechner, National Communications Director for Health Care for America Now. "As for Sen. Lieberman's concerns, the president just explained in today's Town Hall that his plans for reform will be deficit neutral, and we'll pay for reform by reallocating wasted money already in the system and by cutting itemized deductions for the wealthiest 2 percent."

UPDATE: Lieberman spokesman Marshall Wittmann writes on with the following comment, early Thursday morning.

Contrary to the suggestion that Senator Lieberman is a "health care spoiler," the opposite is true because Senator Lieberman is working hard to build a coalition to pass a health care reform bill. Although he does not support a public option that would be cost prohibitive and would make it very unlikely to pass a bill, he strongly supports health care reform that expands access, lowers costs and increases quality of care.

In bankruptcy hearings that went late into the night on Tuesday and resumed again on Wednesday, executives from General Motors laid out the pricey process through which the company will be restructured.

Company officials testified that it would cost approximately $1.25 billion to wind down the old GM, which is being retired in hopes of building a leaner, more modern company. Then an infusion of an additional $30 billion would be required to jump start the new GM. Any deviation from the plan, such as a refusal on behalf of the bankruptcy judge to allow the company to sell off assets, could result in liquidation.

The numbers and testimony provided remarkable window into how the company, once considered the pride of the U.S. economy, has collapsed. They also were a reminder that, as GM goes through a massive process of consolidation and rebirth, it is the taxpayer who will be footing the bill. Already the U.S. government has given the car company more than $19 billion for restructuring. The final tab will surpass $50 billion.

With lofty sums like these being granted for an expedited bankruptcy process, there is a heightened demand to know just where the money is going. But tracking the checks the government is writing is a difficult process. Even seasoned automotive industry and financial reporters say they're not entirely sure where to look.

"If you figure it out, I'd like to know myself," said Bill Visnic, a veteran automotive journalist. "When you give a company money there starts to be certain questions asked about how it is going to be used and what is it going to pay for. And it gets pretty murky when you start looking at how a company spends money on its operations. For me, I guess, I think it would be nice to know broadly: Are you spending the money to pay for improvements on your fixed assets, which are always an ongoing investment? Or is it going to go to a softer side of the business -- the advertising and the marketing? I would guess that if you start to touch those buttons too hard with the general public that is the stuff that would raise some scrutiny."

At this point it is nearly impossible to see detailed breakdowns of how GM is spending taxpayer money. The bankruptcy process will determine what portion of debts are repaid and assets sold. But the government is also paying to keep the company operational during these proceedings. Details regarding these expenditures are, as GM itself acknowledges, largely nonexistent.

"The easiest way to describe this is that the bridge loans were intended for general U.S. operating and restructuring expenses while GM and the [Treasury Department] worked on a long-term restructuring plan," said Tom Wilkinson, a spokesman for the company. "You can't say that Treasury loans went to X, while revenue from ongoing operations went to Y. The goal from day one was to stabilize and rapidly restructure GM so that it could return to health and start paying back the taxpayers. And so far, we are making good progress on that path."

Would more transparency and a different funding structure necessarily be a good thing? Wilkinson noted that if the GM bailout was funded by earmarks, the process of restructuring the company would "slow down... and cost more money in the end." Meanwhile, as Visnic and others note, opening up GM's books could be a double-edged sword, presenting problems both politically and economically.

Taxpayers, the argument goes, should be told exactly where their money is going. But as GM attempts a complicated and massive restructuring, disclosing proprietary business information, such as how much money the company is investing in a particular type of battery technology, could put it at a competitive disadvantage.

In addition, while the U.S. government will become the majority shareholder of the restructured company, with 60 percent of the stock, the administration is acutely sensitive to charges that it is meddling in private industry.

"The people managing these companies are so afraid of being called socialist that they can't do anything at all. But then it ends up that they are acting like bad capitalists," said Susan Helper a professor of economics at Case Western Reserve University and an expert on the automotive industry.

"I agree that we want to avoid micro-managing," Helper added. "On the other hand I also feel that we should use our investments to promote our interests and that the taxpayer has a slightly different interest than other investors. We should be spending money to keep people employed and building green cars. At the very least, the government should be considering a long-time horizon growth -- a patient-capital-type private investor. More controversial would be if the money was being spent on externalities... Are they spending it on retooling a plant in China, or revamping an office?

"I think the view that the administration's take is that these are managers and they know how to spend the bailout money," Helper concluded. "It is crazy because here are these managers who are so bad at managing that they are calling on the government for support. But somehow it is our role as taxpayers to only hand them the money and then hands off from there."

There are some ways to chart some of the money going to GM, but observers and watchdogs say that the data is hard to access and vague. For example, the president's Automotive Industry Financing Program is part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and so, amidst the detailed transaction reports listed on the Treasury Department's website, one can get a general sense of how much capital has been transferred to the company. But the explanations of what that money has purchased is not clear. On April 22, 2009, General Motors Corporation was granted $2 billion from Treasury for the purposes of "Debt Obligation" On June 3, the $30 billion payment was made, again for "Debt Obligation."

As part of the latter transaction, the U.S. government will receive roughly $8.8 billion in debt and preferred stock in the new GM. The company, in turn, will establish an independent trust, valued at $9 billion in funds and preferred stock, to provide health care benefits to retirees and TO continue to honor consumer warranties. The company has set aside a pool of funds ($361 million) to provide a backstop for payments on warranties for cars sold during the bankruptcy transition.

In addition, the Treasury Department has made many documents public related to General Motor's pledges and plans to streamline its operations. This includes a 264-page credit agreement between the company and the U.S. Treasury dated from April and a 117-page restructuring plan that GM presented to Treasury in February. Both of these files provide a detailed framework for where taxpayer money is going and for what purposes. In terms of tracking individual expenditures, however, those details are lacking.

Finally, the president has assigned an independent team of economists, energy experts and business managers, to oversee the restructuring of General Motors. And as a Treasury official noted, because "all the money that has been committed to GM comes out of TARP funding" the company is now "subject to all of the same corporate governance and compensation guidelines as any TARP recipient."

But, in the end, a large portion of the plan for rebuilding the company is being conducted away from the public's view. It may be, as Wilkinson notes, part of the normal bankruptcy process. "All loans and the [debtor-in-possession] financing are for use in general operating and restructuring activities here in the U.S.," he said. "That's as precise as this gets." And it could simply be because the U.S. government, as the Treasury official argued, "isn't interested in managing the day to day operations of any TARP recipients."

"As the majority shareholder on behalf of taxpayers," the official added, "the U.S. government will be involved in discussions in the same way a private investor would be."

But with taxpayers in uncharted waters in terms of the size of the monetary investment in a private company, some observers feel more transparency (regardless of the administrative costs associated with it) are deserved.

"This is an important public policy decision with unprecedented money involved," said Douglas Elliott, a fellow at the Brookings Institute who has followed the automotive bailout. "And it would be nice if it were clear how much money were used and for exactly what."

A highly personalized push for health care reform is being launched in several key states, with breast cancer survivors urging reluctant Democrats to support a public option for health insurance coverage.

On Wednesday, a coalition of progressive groups, including Democracy for America, MoveOn, and Change Congress, released a 60-second television ad in Louisiana ramping up the pressure on Sen. Mary Landrieu to support a government vehicle for insurance. In addition to shining a spotlight on the $1.6 million Landrieu has received from health and insurance companies in the form of campaign contributions, the spot also elevates the story of Karen Gadbois, a breast cancer survivor who had won the title of 2008 New Orleanian of the Year by exposing corruption after Hurricane Katrina.

"I'm a breast cancer survivor, so I know how important affordable health care is," says Gadbois. "But right now I'm uninsured, even though I work full-time, because the cost is just so high. It would literally take away half my salary."

The Landrieu ad, which will run in New Orleans and Baton Rouge for a week, is not an isolated incident of progressives using stories of medical suffering to push for more comprehensive health care reform. In a highly personalized essay on her site, FireDogLake, Jane Hamsher wrote about her own experiences with breast cancer and how it has affected the way she approaches the health care debate. In addition to calling out those female senators who currently sit on the fence when it comes to a public option, Hamsher adds that -- in coordination with the progressive group BlueNC and fellow blog, Pam's House Blend -- she will be reaching out to "my fellow breast cancer survivors in North Carolina," to put the pressure on Sen. Kay Hagan.

"Kay Hagan has been the sole obstacle keeping a public plan from coming out of the Senate HELP Committee," Hamsher writes. "On Friday, Pam Spaulding and breast cancer survivors of North Carolina will go to Kay Hagan's office carrying their signatures and those of the people who stand with them, asking Hagan to stand with us, too."

Finally, the White House itself seems to be increasingly willing to use health care horror stories as a launching pad to build momentum for reform. The president's campaign arm, Organizing for America, is raising funds for a nationwide ad campaign featuring, "real people, looking us in the eye, telling their actual story, and asking for our help to fix this broken system."

The targets, in all likelihood, won't be specific Democratic senators but rather a national audience. The goal, however, will be the same as the MoveOn ad and Hamsher's post: crystallizing public pressure for Congress to act and act in a way that reflects the president's agenda.

One of the Senate's most vocal progressives is demanding that the Democratic Party commit to voting against filibustering health care legislation now that, with the impending arrival of Al Franken, the party has 60 caucusing members.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), called on the White House and Democratic leadership in Congress to ensure that party members agree unanimously to support cloture on legislation that would revamp the nation's health care system. Democratic senators on the fence, he added, could still oppose the bill. But at the very least they should be required to let the legislation come to an up-or-down vote.

"I think that with Al Franken coming on board, you have effectively 60 Democrats in the caucus, 58 and two Independents," Sanders said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "I think the strategy should be to say, it doesn't take 60 votes to pass a piece of legislation. It takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster. I think the strategy should be that every Democrat, no matter whether or not they ultimately end up voting for the final bill, is to say we are going to vote together to stop a Republican filibuster. And if somebody who votes for that ends up saying, 'I'm not gonna vote for this bill, it's too radical, blah, blah, blah, that's fine.'"

"I think the idea of going to conservative Republicans, who are essentially representing the insurance companies and the drug companies, and watering down this bill substantially, rather than demanding we get 60 votes to stop the filibuster, I think that is a very wrong political strategy," Sanders added.

Coming hours after the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Franken the winner in a nearly eight-month recount process, Sanders' remarks reflect what will likely be a more aggressive political ethos from within the Democratic Party. Having a sixtieth caucusing member in the Senate gives the party the margin it needs to stave off a Republican filibuster, which seems all but certain should health care reform include a public option for insurance coverage. But the reality remains that the Democratic caucus is far from united. Corralling all of its members behind one piece of health care legislation -- especially the public option -- remains elusive.

Sanders' advice, which he hinted at in a separate interview with the Washington Post's Ezra Klein, is to simply take the parliamentary hurdles out of the process. The Party wouldn't have to worry about whip counts and could, in the end, get a more favorable final product, he believes.

"I think that politically that is something everybody can handle. You say, 'Look, I think there should be a vote. I'm gonna vote against it for A, B and C reasons. But I think the process has to move forward and it's unacceptable that Republicans keep trying to stop everything," said the Vermont Independent, who added that "The White House could play a very important part in this process"

"I think it would be great if we could have 100 senators voting for this, but what is important is the product that you get, not bipartisanship," Sanders went on. "So we should ask Republicans to support it. If they choose not to they do so at their own political risk. The focus should be on a strong bill trying to get Republican support rather than a weak bipartisan bill."

To this point, Senator Ben Nelson has hinted that he may oppose a public option for insurance coverage but has told constituents in Nebraska that he could very well support cloture despite opposing the bill itself. Other Democrats on the fence include Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Kay Hagan, of North Carolina, and Diane Feinstein of California.

As for the actual legislation itself, Sanders said he expected a strong public option to come out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions final product, But he worried that it would be "watered down" in order to bring Republican lawmakers on board. The concern, as Sanders expressed it, was that key Democrats in the process -- namely Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. -- were structuring their efforts to recruit Republican support rather than the best policy. He ridiculed the so-called "Coalition of the Willing," a group of four Republicans and three Democrats, organized by Baucus to help craft his reform proposal.

"The people who are sitting around who may determine health reform in the Senate are a majority of Republicans," Sanders said, incredulously.

In its place, Sanders proposed a Coalition of Unwilling -- as in a group of lawmakers unwilling to sacrifice a progressive bill for the sake of bipartisanship.

"Something is very wrong," he said. "What Sen. Baucus said is that the strategy should be to reach out to Republicans. All of them, without exception oppose a public plan. So what you'll end up having is a very weak piece of legislation probably regressively funded. My strategy is different."

Moments after former Sen. Norm Coleman conceded the drawn-out Minnesota Senate election to Al Franken, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said that that he would sign the election certificate. In a matter of minutes, the eight-month-long recount process had come to a close.

All was well within the Democratic Party, which had finally received that elusive 60th caucus member. The Republican filibuster would be no longer be a threat.

Or maybe not.

Franken is expected to come to Washington after the July 4th recess. But not everyone is convinced that his presence will make a huge political difference. The reality, which few in the Democratic Party are willing to talk about openly, is that there are really only 58 caucusing members. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA, has been out for nearly all of the current Congress on medical leave. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WV, while released from the hospital on Tuesday morning, continues to face health issues of his own. Meanwhile, moderate Democrats like Mary Landrieu, D-La, and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., have made it almost a point of pride in not allowing their votes to be taken for granted. And on specific issues, the party has proven strikingly allergic to philosophical unison.

"It is good news for the Democrats and it is bad news for the Republicans. That is a simple fact," said Mo Elleithee, a Democratic strategist who has worked on Hillary Clinton and Terry McAuliffe's campaigns. "Having said that, you don't want to get too far ahead of yourself here. It is not like the caucus is unanimous on every issue."

Talking on condition of anonymity, some Democratic strategists were even blunter. "Sixty is an imaginary number," said one operative. "You are always going to lose the Ben Nelsons and all the centrists. This is why 2010 proves to be so important because it can set a buffer for that 60 threshold."

"This is a story Jim Manley [Majority Leader Harry Reid's press secretary] will love, but it has the virtue of being true," the operative added.

"It's true," said Manley when reached by phone. "It is obviously sometimes difficult to say this to your audience [Huffington Post readers]. While this is, of course, good news to the people of Minnesota, President Obama, and the Senate Democratic, Franken's mere presence alone will not mean that the Democrats will be able to jam through our agenda, or make it any less critical for Democrats and Republicans to work together. We have a diverse caucus who represent diverse constituencies. No one's vote is ever automatic. Also... we have two senators that currently aren't voting right now. But then I would go back and say that up until now we have gotten very little to no help from Republicans who say no against everything and are prepared to bet on this president to fail."

Discussing the new congressional landscape, officials in the White House and on the Hill wavered between relief and delight. As one administration official put it, "counting votes is a nice problem to have," as opposed to corralling them. Over in Congress, meanwhile, the prevailing wisdom held that leadership's job just got a bit lighter.

"Franken doesn't solve all of our problems," said long-time strategist Paul Begala, who regularly talks to all ranks of the Democratic establishment. "But first, as a friend and supporter of Al's, this is delayed justice but not denied. Second, this is a good day for Harry Reid. He has the hardest job in Washington except for the president. I'm not sure how he has any hairs left on his head. This won't solve all problems but it will make it much easier."

As Begala argued, it is easier to convince a senator on the fence to come into the party fold when he or she has the chance to the deal-breaking vote. The incentives, simply put, are more alluring and the White House might not need to make major concessions in order to get its priorities past.

"No one in that crowd in the middle wants to be the big leap to be the 57th," Begala said. "But if you are going to be 60th, or in the group that gets to 60, it becomes easier to leap across that gap."

Franken is likely to be sworn in next Tuesday and, according to Manely, he is poised to serve on the Judiciary and Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committees, among others. In discussion with Democrats inside and out of office the issue they expect the newly elected Senator to have the greatest impact on is health care. On topics like the soon to be considered cap-and-trade bill and the Employee Free Choice Act, strategists say, the party might face deficits bigger than one additional vote.

Whip counts and legislation aside, the party is clearly embracing Wednesday's news. In addition to helping the Democratic Party face critical upcoming votes in the Senate, the seating of Franken is, at its most primal level, another shot to the gut for the reeling GOP.

"I'd rather be us than them," said Elleithee.

The White House declined to say on Tuesday whether it would support the use of a parliamentary maneuver to pass a health care in the Senate on a 50, as opposed to 60-vote margin. If anything, spokesman Robert Gibbs stressed, it was "always" the president's preference to get legislation passed by regular order.

Gibb's remarks followed earlier comments by two major White House allies -- former Majority Leader Tom Daschle and John Podesta, the head of the presidential transition -- who both insisted that the use of reconciliation to pass health care should be on the table.

"I would not hesitate to use it," Daschle said on Monday.

"There is a point at which you have to move on," said Podesta. And at that point, he said, reconciliation, which eliminates the use of the filibuster by Republicans, should come into play.

Asked on Tuesday if he agreed with Daschle and Podesta, Gibbs refused to talk legislative strategy. "Again, I think that gets a great deal ahead of where we are in the process," he replied. "I think the president has confidence in the system working, in ... the steps many committees are taking to work amongst themselves to find a legislative solution. Obviously I think having the ability, having lots of different avenues to take, gives Congress an understanding of how serious the problem is."

Pressed on whether he thought, as Podesta implied, that Republicans in the Senate were asking too much from the White House in a health care compromise, Gibbs again declined to draw "bright lines."

"The process continues," he said. "The president and the administration feel good about the progress ... and will continue to work in that system to find a solution to that problem." The president always prefers passing legislation via regular order as opposed to reconciliation, Gibbs said.